AGRICULTURE. 139 



Still there must be many young farmers in our over- 

 stocked land, who through necessity (we will trust not 

 through choice) yearly leave the British shores to seek a 

 fortune in foreign climes, and to a hard-working practical 

 farmer with a small capital, I think Sweden just now offers 

 a pretty good field. At first, such a man would have little 

 difficulty in finding employment on a farming school for a 

 year, the director of which could speak English ; or at any 

 rate he could board for a trifle, and learn the language and 

 farming in return for his work. And I will here add that it 

 would be the most egregious folly for a man to purchase an 

 estate, or to think of settling in this country if he means to 

 have anything to do with land till he had gone through such 

 a course. By the end of this time he could have learnt tne 

 language, the habits of the people, and the mode of agri- 

 culture. He might then always find employment ; if he had 

 no capital, as a bailiff on an estate, or if he had capital, 

 by renting a farm himself. Farms are always to be rented 

 as well as bought. A man certainly can enter a farm here 

 cheaper than in England ; all implements well made after 

 English models, can be obtained cheaper than at home. 

 Living is decidedly cheaper. And we have just shown (from 

 what I consider to be a very fair calculation) what return a 

 farm in proper condition, in a good farming district, could be 

 made to give. We will now suppose a man to buy this farm 

 as a simple money speculation. 



In our calculation, we have valued the actual cost price 

 of the 244 acre farm at a little under 2000, and 122 acres 

 of it, as of little real benefit to the farmer in its present 

 state. We must bear in mind now that we are not alluding 

 to a forest district, where the forests will give a special re- 

 turn, and must be bought after their timber value ; but to a 

 tract of open land in a farming district, where the woods 

 are only plantations, and where many of them may, by cut- 

 ting, burning, and hacking, be made to carry crops in time. 

 We will therefore, for the sake of argument, suppose all the 

 rough land to be worth improving, and let us in round num- 

 bers reckon the improvement of the whole farm of 244 acres 



